Today -100: October 20, 1922: Of coalitions and enigmas

Lloyd George is out. Many had thought that LG, slippery weasel that he is, would figure out a way to hang on a bit longer. The Tories worried that they wouldn’t be able to pull out of the Coalition without splitting their party between Cexiters (a term I have just made up) and those, like their leader Austen Chamberlain, who wanted the Coalition to continue. But the vote of Tory MPs at the Carlton Club to withdraw is unexpectedly overwhelming. Chamberlain will soon resign as party leader if he hasn’t already. Lloyd George recommends to the king that he call on Andrew Bonar Law to form a government, but Law isn’t yet his party’s leader and says he can’t do it until he’s sure the Unionist Party is behind him. I mean, Tory MPs might not want to form a solely Tory government, who knows, gonna have to ask them. Once ensconced in Number Ten, Law might call a general election, but isn’t obliged to do so (see also Johnson, Boris).

Negotiations between Mussolini and former prime minister Giovanni Giolitti fail, and Mussolini and poet-aviator Gabriele d’Annunzio sign an agreement uniting their forces.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Yup, that’s Ohio, sooooooo enigmatic.

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Today -100: October 19, 1922: Of hateful, venomous by-products, disenfranchisements, and hoods & nighties

Friedrich Ebert was elected provisional president of Germany in 1919, provisional because the Weimar constitution hadn’t gone into effect yet, and he’s still provisional. The Reichstag was supposed to set an election, but never did. Now, it decides to extend Ebert’s term until 1925. Ebert actually wants the election that was supposed to occur in December, which he’d certainly win, to go ahead but some centrists are afraid of a campaign, “with all its hateful, venomous by-products” (hateful, venomous by-products are the worst kind of by-products). Skipping the election will take a constitutional amendment. They’ll do that next week; evidently amending the constitution isn’t that difficult.

Woodrow Wilson is no longer able to vote since he lives in D.C. and the New Jersey election laws that let him vote in Princeton while he was president have been changed.

Harding tells the Allied Christian Societies that the US will never depart from the 18th Amendment.

Milwaukee’s Socialist mayor Daniel Hoan responds to Charles Fowler, founder of Lanier University in Atlanta, which he sold to the Ku Klux Klan, rejecting Fowler’s kind offer to help Milwaukee maintain law and order (why Milwaukee ? fuck if I know), saying he’d make Milwaukee the “hottest place this side of hell” for any Kluxer who attacked anyone in his town, adding “for you to come here from the State where lynching is the most popular outdoor sport to tell our people that they need this organization, with its hoods and nighties, to insure law and order is in itself ridiculous.”

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Today -100: October 18, 1922: Of absent professors, burning blimps, beebs, and robins hood

Italian PM Luigi Facta is standing on the railroad station waiting for a train to take him to the king where he plans to hand in his resignation when he receives a mysterious phone call that causes him to change his mind. His minister of war has been talking to people and it is believed either that former prime minister Giovanni Giolitti has said he won’t take the job again or that the Fascists have refused to participate in a coalition government. 

Belgian historian Henri Pirenne has just discovered that he’s been a Princeton professor of history for the last 6 years. Princeton appointed him in the hopes that it would get Germany to release him from captivity, which it did not. But it never told him. Or paid him.

Another US Army airship, the C-2, the army’s largest blimp, catches on fire in San Antonio after experiencing an unexpected “strong puff” of wind on takeoff. The C-2 previously made the first transcontinental trip by an airship. Most of its crew injure themselves jumping to the ground, but no one’s killed this time. Once again, hydrogen and airships prove not to be a good combination.

The BBC is founded, sort of.  British Broadcasting Company Ltd. Financed by a royalty on BBC radios, but radioheads (wirelessheads?) built their own, so it will go bankrupt and the British government will use its assets to create the Beeb we know today. It will go on the air next month.

Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks, premieres. Too much “Earl of Huntingdon” and the Crusades, not enough “Robin Hood” and Sherwood Forest, if you ask me.

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Today -100: October 17, 1922: Of liberty, chicken oaths, and limits

Theodore Schierlman, mayor of Liberty, Kansas, is kidnapped by 15 Klansmen, taken out of town and whipped for having spoken against the Klan. His lawyer says he will sue the town for $100,000 under the Kansas mob law.

Judge Talley of General Sessions (NYC), after a Chinese witness is sworn in, asks the interpreter how much the oath “really means to a Chinese.” The interpreter explains that it would only count if the witness placed their hand on a dying sacrificed chicken. The judge doesn’t go along with it.

Britain rejects a proposal from the US to extend the 3-mile territorial limit to 12 miles, within which the US could search ships for booze. This is aimed at the Bahamas and other British colonies.

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Today -100: October 16, 1922: Of Fascists and geishas

Some members of the Italian cabinet think they should give in to the Fascists’ demand for a new election on new rules, but the majority of ministers don’t want to do that, so the cabinet will just resign and let the king decide who the next prime minister should be. Possibly frequent prime minister Giovanni Giolitti, who is already sounding out people for cabinet positions, including, possibly, some Fascists. An AP story says the government realizes it lacks sufficient authority and prestige to re-establish respect for the law, and the Fascists are “the real rulers of the country,” who, despite their “excesses,” are credited with preventing the Communists taking over.

The appellate court of Osaka, Japan rules that girls are not bound by contracts made by their parents or guardians without their consent. Geishas, we’re talking about geishas.

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Today -100: October 15, 1922: Of phones, drummers, new cities, and criteria

Automatic phones are inaugurated in NYC, so one can now dial, say, Pennsylvania 6-5000 without going through the operator, if one has a dial phone and lives in the Pennsylvania exchange, which is so far the only one with this service.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Sounds like an ill-conceived children’s book. The drummer goes by “Sambo.”

The president of Brazil is authorized to begin construction of a city in the center of the country to serve as the new capital. They’ve been talking about this for decades, and it will actually take a few more decades for work to begin on Brasilia.

T.S. Eliot founds The Criterion, a literary magazine, which he will edit. The first issue includes his poem The Waste Land.

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Today -100: October 14, 1922: Of coalitions

Tory Party leader Austen Chamberlain opposes breaking up the Coalition government, saying the only choice is coalition or (gasp, horror) a Labour government. So he is happy keeping Lloyd George (Lib) in office as prime minister, but are the Tory MPs?

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Today -100: October 13, 1922: Every time I see the name Learned Hand it’s always startling

US District Judge Learned Hand issues a temporary injunction against the feds enforcing their rule against liquor on ships. The shipping companies complained, among other things, that Italian passengers and crew have to have wine. I mean, they just have to. (Update: I think it’s literally a requirement that crew on French and Italian ships are provided with wine).

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Today -100: October 12, 1922: Of sleeping firemen, immigration, and drug dealers

Headline of the Day -100:  

Which is NYC Mayor John Hylan’s excuse for denying them a pay raise. And he’ll remove the beds from fire stations. Also night school teachers pad their rolls, so no pay raise for them either. Or for cops.

Immigration officials like to “inspect” disabled foreigners before allowing them into the country, even for short visits, to ensure they don’t become a public charge. So they hold up Brunel Cohen, a former major and current Member of Parliament whose legs were shot off at Ypres, on his way to an American Legion convention. Other passengers of the Cunarder liner Berengaria who are inspected include actor Frederick Worlock, coming to act in a play, who lost a hand in Flanders, and Henry Biggs, a University College, London professor coming to give lectures, who has bad hearing.

Startling Ad of the Day -100:

You can get a tube of Listerine tooth paste at certain drug stores. The first one is free; after that it’ll cost ya 10¢, cause that’s how drug dealers roll.

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Today -100: October 11, 1922: Whither shall I lead 400,000 exiles?

The (Greek) governor of Eastern Thrace, Xenophon Decasos, asks “Whither shall I lead 400,000 exiles?”, now that Greece has agreed to give up the province. He figures Christians “will find life intolerable under this new and more terrible Turk”.

The Fat People’s League for Copeland is launched to support the Senate run of NYC Health Commissioner Royal Copeland. “Recruits are coming in by the ton”. Har fucking har.

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Today -100: October 10, 1922: Of queens and smooty prayers

The British Labour Party demands new elections, responding to the possibility that Lloyd George’s Near East policies will lead Britain into war with Turkey. 

When Princess Hermin of Reuss-Greiz marries former kaiser Wilhelm, they’re planning to call her Queen Wilhelmina of Prussia. Wilhelm and Wilhelmina, like Pinky and Pinkie in Adam’s Rib, isn’t that cute? No word yet on whether Germany will be banning the “queen” from entering Prussia like Wilhelm is.

Sen. Reed Smoot says First Lady Florence Harding recovered from her illness because of Mormon prayers.

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Today -100: October 9, 1922: I’ve had enough

Uncle Joe Cannon, former speaker of the House, is retiring after spending 46 of the last 50 years in Congress (a record). “I’ve had enough,” says the 86-year-old, who attended the first Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Greece says it will accept the decisions of the Allies at the Mudania conference – provided they’re unanimous. Which is kind of a big condition, but Greece does seem to have accepted, maybe, that it’s lost Thrace. Eastern Thrace, anyway.

The World Series is won by the New York team.

WJZ, Newark’s news leader, invites the NY Republican and Democratic candidates for governor and US senator to speak on the talking-type wireless.

Karel Čapek’s play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) premieres in NY, with Spencer Tracy as a robot. The word robot now enters the English language.

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Today -100: October 8, 1922: A little of what you fancy

Although the assassins of Germany Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau killed themselves rather than be captured, 15 of their alleged conspirators are on trial, and some of them got sick. Naturally, rumors are spreading that they were given poisoned chocolates to stop them implicating high-up reactionaries. (Update: actually this is true).

It is discovered that insulin might help fight diabetes, but it is very expensive.

British music hall singer Marie Lloyd dies at 52. She was known for such songs as “The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery,” “When you Wink the Other Eye,” “Twiggy Vous,” “A Little of What You Fancy” (below), “My Old Man Said Follow the Van” and other slightly naughty songs. She was almost refused entry into the US in 1913 because she was traveling with her the man who was not yet her 3rd husband; the labor secretary intervened to let her in.

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Today -100: October 7, 1922: Of booze cruises, and fictitious governments

Harding and Attorney General Daugherty ban the sale of alcohol on American ships even outside US territorial waters. The order also bans foreign ships entering US ports with alcohol even as cargo not destined for the US.

Headline of the Day -100:  

Mussolini says “In Italy there exists two governments – a fictitious one, run by [Prime Minister] Facta, and a real one, run by the Fascisti. The first of these must give way to the second.” There has been “much talk” of the Fascists occupying Rome.

Mayors of a bunch of towns near Boston say they won’t allow the KKK to operate or hold meetings in their towns.

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Today -100: October 6, 1922: Winner takes 3/5

Mussolini and the Fascists demand general elections before the end of the year, and that any party receiving a majority of votes, like they think they would, get 3/5ths of the parliamentary seats. The Fascists got 35 of the 535 seats in the May 1921 elections, which was fought on proportional representation.

The second game of the World Series (my money’s on the New York team) is called on account of darkness, thus ending in a tie, infuriating the fans, who accuse the owners of a scheme to wring more money from the series. So the teams hastily agree to turn over the game’s takings to New York charities, disabled soldiers and the like.

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Today -100: October 5, 1922: We are still the biggest lot of talkers that ever lived

Talks are beginning over the Near East. Both sides want the Allies to send troops to Thrace to keep the other side out until it is turned over to Turkey.

The Italian Socialist Party convention votes to purge moderates willing to work within the system as opposed to working to overthrow it. Can’t wait to see which method establishes the Socialist utopia in Italy.

The Italian Fascists occupy Trent and Bolzano, both new additions to Italy taken from Austria. They oust Julius Perathoner, who has been Bolzano’s mayor since 1895.

Kansas Gov. Henry Allen insists his Industrial Court doesn’t infringe on free speech. “We are still the biggest lot of talkers that ever lived,” he says. He says he told shopkeepers that putting placards in their windows in support of the rail strike was illegal under the anti-picket law, and then had the editor of the Emporia Gazette arrested for saying that that was a violation of free speech.

Swedish voters reject prohibition 924,874 to 889,078.

Rebecca Latimer Felton says “I shall not strive to win glory in statesmanship” in, um, the one day she will spend as senator when the Senate is not in session. She also talks some shit about flappers.

The NYT praises the appointment of Felton, saying that Georgia “speaks with no jarring note of sex antagonism,” compared to the condition Alva Belmont attached to her gift of a headquarters building to the National Woman’s Party barring men from holding office or receiving a salary from the NWP. The NYT considers that “arbitrary discrimination against one-half the sum total of the Creator’s handiwork.” When will men catch a break? The NYT invokes “Southern chivalry” because of course it does.

A couple of days ago furrier Abraham Seligman was hit by an arrow through the window of his 3rd-floor 5th-Avenue shop. Turns out Douglas Fairbanks, in town to promote Robin Hood, was playing with bows and arrows with his entourage on the roof of the Ritz-Carlton and... something something. The next day Fairbanks read about Seligman in the newspaper and visited him, after which Seligman mysteriously was no longer interested in pressing charges.

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Today -100: October 4, 1922: It’s going to thrill the nation

Rebecca Latimer Felton accepts the appointment to fill Georgia’s US Senate for a day. “It’s going to thrill the nation,” she predicts. Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party says women throughout the world will be pleased by this recognition of the new position of women. Paul mentions Felton’s work for women but not that it included repeatedly advocating protecting white women by lynching as many “ravening human beasts” as necessary.

The Irish Free State offers an amnesty to rebels who turn in their arms and stand down by October 15th. Until October 15th: party!

The Italian Socialist Party convention, which has been bitterly divided on whether to 1) join the government or 2) have a revolution, devolves into fisticuffs.

The NYT notes Pres. Harding & SecState Charles Evans Hughes are reportedly “dumfounded” by the expectation of many people, especially churchfolk, that the US should intervene in Near Eastern affairs, to protect Christians if nothing else. I mean, don’t they realize that Harding was elected on a platform of isolation?

Henry Ford plans to start making cars in China.

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Today -100: October 3, 1922: Of empty honors, dead Alexes, modest villas, Borgia rings, and lynchings

In what the NYT calls an “empty honor,” Georgia Gov. Thomas Hardwick will appoint Rebecca Latimer Felton to the US Senate to fill the seat vacated by Thomas Watson’s death. He’s already offered it to Watson’s widow, but she is expected to (and will) decline. Hardwick is running for the seat, so this is mostly a bid for the female vote. Felton would be senator for one (1) day, when the Senate isn’t supposed to be in session, thus the emptiness of the honor. Felton, who is 87, is the widow of a congresscritter whose campaigns she managed. She  be the first woman senator and the last senator who had owned slaves. She’s a loud proponent of lynching. It will be nearly a decade before there is another woman senator.

Disappointing Headline of the Day -100:  

Disappointing because at first I thought it must be about that monkey whose bite took the life of Greece’s King Alexander a couple of years ago denying the whole thing. Turns out the story is actually that the Hungarian News Agency has retracted its report that there was a revolution in Yugoslavia and Yug. King Alexander had been assassinated.

Ex-king Constantine of Greece has decided to live in Sicily in a “modest” rented villa, because it’s cheap and he’s claiming poverty, as was the custom with deposed kings, although we know he moved his investments and the queen’s jewels out of the country in preparation for just such an event.

Isadora Duncan and her entourage are let into the US after a couple hours’ interrogation by immigration officials. “[T]hey wanted to know what I looked like when I danced. I said I could not tell because I have never seen myself dance.”

A curio collector who bought a 15th-century ring in the shape of a snake from the Borgia period is poisoned by it but not killed, yet anyway, presumably because the poison weakened over time. The ghosts of the Borgias are disappointed.

After a mob in Montgomery, Alabama are told that the guy they’re looking for was sent to another jail, they grab a black fireman (presumably any black guy will do) from his home and lynch him instead.

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Today -100: October 2, 1922: The soul of Russia and the soul of America are about to understand each other

The Prohibition Party asks New York Gov. Nathan Miller (R) if he would accept the Prohibition Party nomination for re-election. He’s not a prohibitionist, but he does stand for enforcing all laws, which is good enough for them. Miller says no, he’s not a prohibitionist and doesn’t want to be mistaken for one. They’ll wind up endorsing him anyway.

The Anti-Saloon League tells its Illinois members to just ignore next month’s referendum on beer and light wines, which the head of its Ill. branch says is just a referendum on obedience of the law.

The NY Republican state convention adopts a plank for equal rights for women.

Dancer Isadora Duncan and her husband, Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, plus a secretary and her children, arrive in the US, but immigration officers order them kept on the ship until a board of inquiry decides whether to allow them into the country. She denies coming to disseminate communist propaganda, she’s all about the art: “We believe the soul of Russia and the soul of America are about to understand each other.”

While sticking up a Dublin pub, robbers shoot Pres. Cosgrave’s father dead when he grabs one of their guns. This isn’t the pub owned by Pres. Cosgrave himself that was robbed last week, but another pub owned by some relative.

The NYC Post Office is reopening the old pneumatic mail tube system shut down by Woodrow Wilson in 1918. Cool.

The medical commissioner for insanity in Cook County, Dr. James Hall, says the number of people going crazy in Chicago has doubled since prohibition.

Headline of the Day -100:  

“Skillfully severed”.

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Today -100: October 1, 1922: Being a king is no fun these days

Ex-king Constantine (or Prince Flukesbouren, as he now styles himself), ex-queen Sophie, and still-prince Nicholas leave Greece on a steamer for Sicily. Conny plans to live in Italy, as Switzerland and (allegedly) Britain have told him no. He says “being a king is no fun these days.”

Russia introduces conscription for all men aged 20 to 40 for terms between 1½ and 4½ years, depending on the military branch.

Speaking of former emperors, the NYT relays the hot goss about the minor royal family that Wilhelm will be marrying into. It seems Princess Hermin’s father Heinrich XXII insisted on personally administering corporal punishment to public school children of both sexes at the palace, and that her brother Heinrich XXIV is deaf, blind and “imbecilic,” the latter possibly because of the eye operation that also rendered him blind because his mother insisted it be done while she held him on her lap and she... flinched.

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